I am alternating between lamenting that I am casting seeds on rocky soil versus accepting others as they are.

As a youthful but not young person, I like your idea of letting things ripen.

Of course, some seeds are cast on rocky soil, there is only so much time in a day or a life to get things done, and uncertainty can be painful to endure, but all the more reason to practice self-compassion when picking and choosing amongst projects. So much energy is lost in gotta-coulda-woulda-shoulda.

Anyway, apologies for over reacting (and for the cracker-barrel philosophizing first thing in the morning.)

With approaching death, I would imagine, the relative significance of things in one’s life would become clearer - if one is blessed as your friend David was. Less time wasted on distractions. That could help in training heightened awareness.

I could put some of that sharpening of purpose to use on my current path in life.

Actually, I purge my olfactory epithelium with old factory epic helium. In fact, my sniffer tends to work overtime - as my veterinarian informs me. Yesterday it was the smell of apples cooking on the stove, mingling with a kind of beef stew in the oven - this adjacent to the emanations from a Mothers Day bouquet of star gazers and irises, with a dose of Febreeze to take the funereal edge off the flowers. Windows were open to vent some artists materials, thus allowing the aromas of a wet and windy day spiked with the scent of lilacs. Overall was the smell of a roll of Kodachrome in its canister in a desk in the attic.

Now my ears are another matter. I would have trouble hearing somebody play a xylene if we were wearing the same belt.

You are telling me that toxic chemicals and equipment failures are also common to your world. In my world, I distinguish between what I do to myself and what others contribute. (1) Recently, I called chemical safety to confirm that techs in a neigboring pathology facility vented xylene into our hallway. These poor people could no longer smell their own pollutions, presumably because they had destroyed their olfactory epithelium. (2) Some untrained person put organic solvent to dry on a lyophilizer shared by many labs. This caused the pump to malfunction. Our samples melted and were damaged.

Open your window while you use spray paint, better for your olfactory epithelium and your brain.

Experience can alter perception. Until recently a squirrel such as yours would have evinced a bemused reaction in me. But last summer the resident squirrel population back in the glen discovered my eight, immaculately-tended, tomato plants, and I ended up consuming store-bought. Now I see a culprit more than I do a creature and wonder what the little wight, posing so innocently upon its plinth, has been up to lately. Guard thy fruit!

These are real things that you research, I take it. I am perpetually flummoxed by the subtle manner in which people like you are able to probe around in the machinery of life and return with such knowledge. But allow me to ponder this further as I open windows to dispel the stinking odor of spray paint and try to get my dysfunctional drill press and band saw working again.

And,yes, the blue scaffolding needs to remain as a permanent feature of the building.

June:

I had no idea. Actually I had an inkling, but no more. I’m pleased to know now that my enthusiastic responses have registered as useful encouragement.

Steve:

Thanks for citing Irwin. The article mentioned a soccer net in the woods - which reminded me of a rather high volleyball net that I had placed over a walkway as a grad student at PSU.